Russia’s offensive appears to lose momentum in the east

It has been 392 days since the Russian invasion began. On Wednesday, the fighting on the ground continues. The Russian forces have still to achieve anything significant even after more than a year of fighting.

The state of the battlefield

The fight for Bakhmut continues, although it looks as if the Russian offensive has lost the momentum it had gained last week when Wagner Group mercenaries entered the town and captured its eastern part.

The Ukrainian forces even launched a local counterattack around Bakhmut and managed to gain some ground and throw the Russian offensive off balance for a while.

Farther south in the Donbas, the fighting around Avdiivka and Donetsk City continues in earnest.

In the east, the Russian forces continue to conduct small-scale offensive operations along the Svatove-Kreminna line of contact. The key logistical hub of Kupyansk has come under repeated attacks, forcing the Ukrainian authorities to evacuate the majority of its population.

In the south, the situation remains the same. The Russian forces are working on their defensive measures in anticipation of a large-scale Ukrainian counteroffensive. Kyiv has received some bridging special equipment lately, but it is still not clear where the Ukrainian military will choose to strike when it unleashes its counter-offensive.

Russian casualties

Every day, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense is providing an update on its claimed Russian casualties. These numbers are official figures and haven’t been separately verified.

However, Western intelligence assessments and independent reporting corroborate, to a certain extent, the Ukrainian casualty claims. For example, the Oryx open-source intelligence research page has visually verified the destruction or capture of more than 1,800 Russian tanks (which amounts to more tanks than the combined armor capabilities of France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom) and more than 8,300 weapon systems of all types; this assessment has been confirmed by the British Ministry of Defense.

The same independent verification exists for most of the other Ukrainian claims. Recently, the Pentagon acknowledged that the Russian military has lost thousands of combat vehicles of all types, including over 1,000 tanks, and dozens of fighter jets and helicopters.

A Russian tank being struck by an incoming projectile earlier in the war. (Creative Commons)

In November, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley shared the U.S. military’s assessment that the Russian military has lost way more than 100,000 troops so far in the war. But U.S. officials revised this assessment in February. According to U.S. intelligence, Russia has lost almost 200,000 troops killed or wounded in the conflict so far.

Yet, proper casualty figures are still hard to compute and verify given the fog and friction of war.

As of Wednesday, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense is claiming the following Russian casualties:

167,490 Russian troops killed (approximately three times that number wounded and captured)
6,887 armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles destroyed
5,434 vehicles and fuel tanks
3,557 tanks
2,589 artillery pieces
2,183 tactical unmanned aerial systems
909 cruise missiles shot down by the Ukrainian air defenses
509 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS)
305 fighter, attack, and transport jets
290 attack and transport helicopters
272 air defense systems
270 special equipment platforms, such as bridging equipment
18 boats and cutters
four mobile Iskander ballistic missile systems

On Wednesday, Ukrainian forces continued to inflict the heaviest in the direction of Bakhmut, which is located in the south of the Donbas, and along the Kreminna-Svatove line in the east.

The stated goal of the Russian military for the renewed offensive in the east is to establish full control over the pro-Russian breakaway territories of Donetsk and Luhansk and create and maintain a land corridor between these territories and the occupied Crimea.

Feature Image: Destroyed Russian armor earlier in the war. (Ukrainian Ministry of Defense)

Author

Stavros Atlamazoglou

Greek Army veteran (National service with 575th Marines Battalion and Army HQ). Johns Hopkins University. You will usually find him on the top of a mountain admiring the view and wondering how he got there.

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